Vanity Fair decided to do a year-end video dedicated to Hillary Clinton.
Maybe it's time for Hillary Clinton to take up a new hobby in 2018 pic.twitter.com/sbE78rA5At
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) December 23, 2017
It has not gone over well.
Probably before the young women in this video were born, around the time she was their age, Hillary Clinton worked to set up the first rape crisis hotline in Arkansas history. That’s not all. See: https://t.co/PehUMyL6Lc #CancelVanityFair https://t.co/3Q0CNlUs2n
— TR (@yottapoint) December 27, 2017
An even better New Years Resolution? #CancelVanityFair Let's see if this tweet from my tiny account can garner more than the 244 likes Vanity Fair was able to pry out of their 5 million followers https://t.co/y5i1M0FAM3
— JAM (@Eviljohna) December 26, 2017
Hey, @VanityFair, did you suggest hobbies for Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Kerry or even Al Gore…..?Just asking for the 65 mil ppl that voted for the ONLY female candidate of a national pol party to win the popular vote by 3 million. #CancelVanityFair #ourvoicesmatter
— Vector Ø (@We_are_Vector) December 27, 2017
I particularly liked pushing the stereotype of women in technology. That was a nice touch.
One of the Hive editors, before she took her Twitter account private, expressed resentment that the video was taken out of context, as it was part of a series. What she and the others don’t seem to realize is that the other targets of a not-especially-funny set of videos are all still public servants. As such, they can expect to be the focus of year-end zingers.
More importantly, it wasn’t all that long ago when Time magazine featured women on its cover, and in a completely different context. How absolutely tone deaf can the Vanity Fair crew be to follow that elegant and profound piece with, at best, a juvenile, snarky piece targeting our country’s first woman Presidential candidate?
Even if you don’t care for Clinton, hell even if you voted for Trump, seeing six smug young people condescendingly telling a former Senator, Secretary of State, and Presidential candidate to take up knitting should piss you off. Not unless you’re the worst misogynist in the nation.
Donald Trump will love it.
Enjoy those magazine cancellations, Vanity Fair. Maybe with all that free time, you can take up crocheting. Or learning humility.
Update:
NYLON’s Sara Beauchamp writes about the backlash to the Vanity Fair video:
So next time you read a headline or watch a video that’s being quote-tweeted like crazy, before you’re quick to react, stop to consider what you’re getting outraged about. Look into the context before you join the pile on, because there are real people on the other end of our internet outrage. And, especially if they’re a woman, it’s important to remember that they’re already going through enough online, so maybe don’t make it worse.
I haven’t seen any tweets reflecting the editor’s weight, which is the backlash NYLON is responding to. If there are, then these need to be deleted.
However, the Vanity Fair people are professionals. They’re also adults. They’re learning about having to accept the consequences of their actions. If they’re feeling hurt about attacks against them, they might want to consider their attack against private citizen Hillary Clinton, particularly after years of Clinton being bashed the the media.
So no, they earned this pile-on. Best they just suck it up.